


This One

by Caspers_Pyre



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animal Traits, Animal hybrids, Cat/Human Hybrids, Diapers, Fluff, Geeky, Genetic Experimentation, Medical Examination, Non-sexual, Other, Slavery, Star Trek References, catboy, nerdy, soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 10:25:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3484793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caspers_Pyre/pseuds/Caspers_Pyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in an alternate but similar universe. Landon is a reclusive geek looking for a companion so he goes to the adoption agency to find a servant (slave). He makes an unexpected choice and ends up with a little catboy who might be more trouble than he is worth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't have time to write this but I wrote it anyway....  
> It's probably going to be a short fic because my main focus is still on my longer stories.

In this universe there are three general classes: the upper class, the middle class, and the servant class. The upper class and middle class are congruous and allotted similar rights while the servant class is considered property of the families who employ them. Members of the servant class cannot move up in status or amass wealth of their own. It is the responsibility of families to care for the servant’s well being and insure their safety. In return the servants are to obey their masters and serve them selflessly.

Servants can be bought, sold, or traded. Most wealthy families acquire servants at birth because training from infancy is believed to create better, more devoted servants. Places that sell babies (future servants) are called adoption agencies. Adoption agencies receive babies from master’s not willing to keep their servant’s children or from mothers who decide to give up their babies. The children are raised by servants of the house and are eventually apprenticed to one of them.


	2. Love at First Bite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read the prologue first.

Landon stood at the counter, awkwardly waiting for the blonde haired receptionist to acknowledge his presence. She had noticed him for sure, but chose to finish whatever paperwork she was doing before helping him. It was rude, but he didn’t want to be equally impolite by demanding service.

Landon wasn’t even sure why he made an appointment at the servant adoption agency in the first place; it wasn’t something he had really considered before, adopting a child was a serious responsibility. Sure, he had grown up with servants just like everyone else. But he tried to distance himself as far as possible from his opulent childhood, preferring to live a quiet, reclusive life.

He had friends of course; he wasn’t a complete hermit, despite what some people might think. But more often than not he sat alone in his empty apartment and tinkered with his projects. Landon enjoyed what he did so it wasn’t like he was unhappy. He was a geek at heart, working with robotics and computer engineering. Landon was actually quite good at it, in spite of his father’s dissatisfaction.

His father was a politician and he had pressured his son to follow in his footsteps and carry on the legacy, but that was not what Landon wanted. It had been a constant power struggle growing up. His father was always trying to force him into “proper activities for a person of his status” and Landon in return did everything against his father’s wishes. It was the cause of many ugly fights between the two of them.

At 16, Landon moved out of his father’s house and went to college, where he got a degree in mechanical engineering. To say his father was disappointed would be an understatement.  Landon was Robert’s only child and he had had high hopes for him. But trying to change Landon was like trying to convince oil it should be water, useless and frustrating. It was difficult for Robert to let go of his image of a perfect son but he tried to for the sake of their relationship. That’s not to say the father and son didn’t argue sometimes but now there was an uneasy truce.

Unfortunately the one thing Landon couldn’t do was escape his father’s shadow. His father was well known because he was a very powerful and influential man. Everywhere Landon went people recognized him and treated him differently because of who his father was. But he did nothing to earn that respect nor did he want it. All of the unwanted attention really bothered him so he started avoiding going out in public.

Ashlynn, one of his only true friends, became worried when she noticed how much time he spent alone in his apartment, so she suggested he employ a servant to take care of the house-work and keep him company. He had laughed it off at first. So what if he wore pajamas all day and ate stale pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner??? But eventually he had to concede. Even an introvert got lonely sometimes…

He didn’t need an army of servants but it would be nice to have a companion. So before he could second guess himself he made an appointment at the adoption agency.

“Name” The receptionist asked in a bored voice when she finally looked away from her screen. The woman looked him up and down for a moment, seemingly unimpressed by his faded t-shirt and ripped jeans.

“Robert Skully” He answered in a quiet voice, trying not to bring attention to himself.

Her brown eyes widened comically and she quickly straightened up.

“Oh, Mr. Skully! Why didn’t you say something? We’ve been expecting you.” She said flashing her fake white teeth. “Jessica, will be the one helping you today.”

“Wait here, I’ll go get her.” The blonde receptionist said suddenly too cheerful as she swished away. Her hips swayed in time with the click of her shoes. Was she purposefully bouncing like that? He couldn’t tell, but he quickly looked away to avoid staring.

Landon awkwardly returned to examining his hands as he was before. He was overly conscious of the other people already sitting down in the waiting room, waiting for their appointments. He felt bad about receiving preferential treatment but when he refused people got insulted. Or worse they thought he was insulted and tried to apologize and make it up to him. It wasn’t like he was going to ask his father to chop their head off, but they didn’t know that.

He was relieved when the receptionist returned with another lady by her side who he assumed was the aforementioned Jessica. She looked more pleasant than the receptionist. She was still young but her hair was in an elegant bun and her clothes were fitted appropriately.

“Hi Robert! I’m Jessica, I’ll be your adoption agent.” She introduced, shaking his hand.

“Please call me Landon. I go by my middle name.”  Landon asked politely. He didn’t like being reminded of his namesake. It was just another way his father tried to make him a clone.

“Oh I see, I guess you don’t want people confusing you and your father. You can call me Jess if you want.” The agent laughed.

Landon gave her a pained smile and she seemed to get the hint, quickly moving on.

“Well Landon, please follow me this way to my office so we can talk about what you are looking for.” Jessica said leading the way down the well lit corridor.

The agency wasn’t at all as sterile as he expected. It was simply decorated but warm and welcoming.

The agent’s office was even personalized with pictures of her family and pets. He glanced at them curiously.

“So what type of servant are you looking for?” She asked once they were seated.

“I don’t know, someone who can cook and clean… eventually take care of all the general household stuff.” He explained uncomfortably.

“Ok, so you would prefer a girl?” She asked typing the information into her data board.

“Yes, but I boy would be fine too.”

“As far as personality goes, would you prefer an outgoing, chatty child or a calm, even mannered one.”

“Calm and even mannered for sure” He said. The last thing he wanted was one who would talk to him nonstop. Landon still wanted his space.

“Color preference? For instance skin, hair, eye color.”

“None”

“Build? For instance tall, short, strong, thin.”

“Small, thin or medium build.” He needed a servant with finesse not brute strength. He himself was of average height and build…maybe on the thin side.

“Ok I think I found some pretty good matches. Let’s go look at the adoption room. We can come back later to fill out the paperwork.” The agent said cheerfully as she led him to the back of the building. The place was bigger than he expected from looking at the outside.

The door to the adoption room was locked with both a keypad and retinal scanner. Landon wondered if that level of security was necessary. Did they really have that many people trying to kidnap children?

Jessica opened the door revealing a large room filled with rows of white cribs. A few nurses dressed in crisp white uniforms walked up and down the aisle. It must be difficult to keep this many children quiet, Landon thought.

“Feel free to look around, it can get overwhelming though. One of the ones I think you’ll like is over here.” She said leading him to the far left.

They stopped in front of a crib with a chubby faced infant dressed in a bright yellow onesie. Drool was oozing across her squishy face.

“What do you think? Do you want to hold her?” Jessica asked.

“No…I don’t think this is the one.” Landon said, cringing away. He honestly hadn’t been around that many babies before. Were they all this gross? If they were all this gross he wasn’t going to be able to touch them.

“Ok no problem! What about this one over here?” She said moving down the row to show him another baby.

But he didn’t like that one either. The little boy had an odd yellow tone to his skin. Landon decided that couldn’t be healthy.

Jessica continued showing him different babies, but he managed to find fault with all of them. This one was too squishy, this one was too little, this one cried too loudly and the list went on and on.By the end of it both of them were beginning to get frustrated.

Landon was starting to think this had been a bad idea, maybe this wasn’t for him.

“Ok let’s look at one over here.” She directed.

Landon nodded and started to follow her when something caught his eye. A little boy with dark lavender hair was sitting in a crib staring at him intently. Landon hadn’t noticed him before even though he’d probably walked right passed him a couple of times. It was like they had pushed his bed into the corner so no one would see him.

Now that Landon had seen him, he was irrevocably curious. The boy’s lavender hair indicated that he was an animorph but Landon couldn’t tell what type.

Animorphs were individuals who were genetically modified to have animal traits. It wasn’t unusual for embryos to be modified for various things, but some modifications were more successful than others. Unfortunately, animorphic modifications usually weren’t very successful and so it wasn’t all that common.

This little animorph boy, was older than all the other babies Landon had seen. He looked unhappy and squished in his tiny crib, which had bars pulled over the top. Probably so he couldn’t climb out Landon thought.  

“What about this one?” Landon asked curiously staring at the strange boy.

“Oh, that one? You don’t want that one. He looks cute but he has severe behavioral problems.” The agent said dismissively, trying to lead him away.

“Is that why he so much older than the others?” Landon questioned.

“Yes, he has already been adopted and returned twice. I think he is around 4 years old now.” She explained nervously. “If he doesn’t get adopted soon we are going to have to trade him into one of the resale shops. We just don’t have the room for him here and he is bad for business.”

The little boy was staring at them with scared eyes, now. He pressed himself further into the corner when they approached.

“He’s just a baby, he can’t be that bad.” Landon scoffed.

“No, he just needs more attention than most people can provide.” The agent agreed “We’ve tried to find him special placement but so far nothing has worked out. Animorphs aren’t as popular as they once were.”

“Can I hold him?”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.” She said but Landon was already sliding the crib wall down.

The boy tried to escape his grasp but there wasn’t very much room in the crib to move so Landon easily caught him.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.” Landon comforted as he hugged the boy to his chest.

Almost instantly Landon felt a sharp, stinging pain in his shoulder.

“Ow! He bit me” Landon said in shock, trying to hold on to the struggling boy. He couldn’t see his shoulder but he could already feel blood oozing out of it. Definitely a cat animorph judging by those needle-like teeth, he decided.

“I’m so sorry sir! Here put him down, I’ll have the nurse look at your shoulder!” Jessica said panicking.

She tried to grab the boy from him, but the kid started screaming as soon as she touched him.  Landon was surprised that such a loud sound could be made by such tiny lungs. Several other babies heard the screaming and started crying as they were jolted awake.

Jessica fluttered her hands around, not sure what to do about this. They were making quite a scene in the previously quite nursery.

The nurses were rushing around behind them to soothe the upset children. Finally, one of the nurses came up to them holding a syringe filled with some type of syrup.

“This is a sedative it will help him calm down.” She said.

“Nooo” The boy shrieked, kicking wildly as he tried to get away. He managed to get couple good shots at Landon’s ribs that almost made him let go.

“Stop!” Landon ordered loudly. The boy froze staring at him in surprise. “Calm down.”

“If you calm down, you won’t have to take the medicine.” Landon continued.

“No medicine?” The boy asked, hopefully. He seemed to lose all his fight and was now just shaking nervously in Landon’s arms.

“No medicine” Landon confirmed.

The nurse had been standing to the side, patiently waiting to see what would happen. She put the syringe back in her pocket once the boy had calmed down.

“You can hand him over to one of the attendants and they’ll take care of it from here.” The agent said, clearing her throat.

Landon was reluctant to give the kid up. He could still feel the boy’s heart beating nervously against his chest. The poor thing was like a scared little butterfly caught in a net.

“That isn’t necessary; this is the one I want.” Landon announced.

The agent opened and closed her mouth, dumbfounded.

“This one?” She finally asked.

“This one” He confirmed.

Once it was clear that he wasn’t going to change his mind, the agent reluctantly led him back to her office.

Landon pointedly ignored all of the stares and whispers as they passed other people in the hall. These people probably thought he was crazy, but he didn’t care.

“Can you read me off his digits so I can compare it to the chart.” Jessica asked when they got back to the office and she pulled out his file.

Landon flipped over the boy’s wrist so he could read the 8 – digit code that was tattooed on his skin.

 “Excellent, now I just need you to fill out the certificate of ownership. What would you like to name him? If you don’t have a name I have a list you can choose from.”

Landon had forgotten about the naming process. He didn’t have any names picked out but he didn’t want to give the boy something generic.

Landon looked down at the boys lavender hair for a moment before it came to him.

“Riker, his name is Riker”

The agent looked at him in surprise “After the star trek officer?”

“Yep” Landon confirmed.

It took him a second to process what she said. Now it was his turn to be surprised. “Wait, how did you know that???” He asked.

He hadn’t pegged her for a trekkie. Suddenly he had a whole new respect for her.

Jessica blushed and looked back at her paperwork.  

“Ok that should be everything. All I need is for you to sign here, here, and here” she said pointing to the appropriate places on the documents.

“And just so you know there is a reduced price on him so the actual cost is less than the price printed on the paper. Here is a copy of his file and adoption certificate.” She said handing him the documents and a light blue, paper-back book. “This book is a care guide for whoever is to be the main care-giver. Most adopters find it useful.”

“You have 2 weeks to decide if you want to keep him. We will take him back at anytime during those two weeks, no questions asked.” She explained.

“Ok. Is that all?” He asked hoping she didn’t have any more papers for him.

“He needs to have a physical before he leaves, so we can insure that he is in good health.” Jessica said. “The nurse is just down the hall.”

Jessica led them to the RN’s office before excusing herself for other duties.

Riker had been quiet while they sat in Jessica’s office but as soon as they walked into the nurse’s room he began to get upset again. It was too cold and sterile in there.

“Oh come now, it’s not so bad. I’m just going to take your height and weight.”  The old nurse said as she plucked Riker from Landon’s arms.

The room was only equipped with a baby scale which she normally wouldn’t use on a child of his age but luckily he was on the small side so he could still fit. The scale came with straps which she pulled tightly through the rings until they were snug.

He was a little too long for the length measure so she pulled out her measuring tape so she could record his height.

When she was done she turned to Landon. “I need to get his temperature and he’s not going to like it. Can you help me hold him down?” The nurse asked.

Landon winced in sympathy as he went and stood by Riker’s side. The nurse discretely prepared the rectal thermometer before removing the boy’s diaper.

You would have thought someone had stabbed him the way Riker screamed when the thermometer entered him. Landon had one hand on the boy’s chest and the other holding his leg, while the nurse was holding onto both the thermometer and the other leg.

The thermometer had to stay in place for three minutes to get a good reading. Riker screamed and cried **the whole time**. Landon thought his ears might burst from all the dramatics. They were all relieved when the thermometer finally beeped.

“Now for the physical exam” She announced.

“There’s more?” Landon groaned.

“Yes, yes. But as long as our patient cooperates, I’ll have you out in a jiff.”  She answered cheerfully.

Had she not seen what just happened??? He thought

Landon looked over at Riker wearily. Just as he suspected, if looks could kill Landon would definitely be dead by now.

Unfortunately, to do the physical exam Riker couldn’t be tied down so they had to release him. It probably wasn’t a good thing that Landon was already afraid of the pint sized terror.

The nurse had Landon hold him while she listened to his lungs (Landon was pretty sure those worked fine), checked his ears, and searched for any physical abnormalities.

“Alright, everything looks good. He just needs his booster and we’re all done.” She said smiling.

Landon didn’t understand how the woman could be so happy about doing this every day.  

“It might be best if you turn him around.” She suggested.

Right, it would definitely help if he didn’t see the big needle coming.

Landon shifted the boy so he was facing his chest instead of the nurse as she prepared the injection.

“This is the last thing buddy, I promise.” He said trying to distract the boy. It kind of worked, Riker didn’t realize what was happening until the needle was jabbed into his buttocks.

The nurse put a band-aid over it and handed Landon a fresh diaper to put him in. She had to show him to fasten it as he had never diapered a baby before. He then pulled the previously discarded t-shirt over the boys head.  

Landon made a mental note to buy him more clothes soon.

“Alright, here is a copy of his shot record. You’re good to go, just check out at the front desk.” The nurse told him.

Landon carried the sobbing boy up to the front desk. There was now a different lady at the desk, she stared sympathetically at Riker.

He quickly payed for the appointment and checked out so they could get home. Landon felt pretty bad because Riker continued to cry quietly the whole way to the loft.


End file.
